Jodie Foster: “F1” Was ‘Made By AI Wasn’t It?’

Speaking about how Hollywood has changed over the years this week, celebrated actress/filmmaker Jodie Foster says the recent Brad Pitt-led “F1” film felt as if it could’ve been made by AI.

Appearing on Tuesday at the Aspen Festival of Ideas for a talk titled “Who Owns the Future of Hollywood” with former Sony Pictures CEO Michael Lynton, talk of AI came up.

According to Variety, she said she sees AI as “one more giant step forward into changing the industry” after talking about the changes to the movie business she saw that had been brought about by VFX and digital technology.

She then said “F1” was a film that felt like it could have been made by AI:

“I don’t say this disparagingly – how could I? This movie went on to make millions of dollars. But I look at a movie like ‘F1′ and I’m like, ‘F1′ was made by AI. Wasn’t it?

I mean, the structure was exactly the structure that you would learn in school. The actors say the lines exactly the way it would be written if a computer was writing exactly what would be the right thing for that time.

And they were able to dominate the technology to make something big and beautiful and potentially where a lot of the information comes from other places.”

Lynton asked her if she thinks AI is going to replace actors and writers, Foster says: “we do replace people” already – pointing to how studios save money on crowd scenes by replicating background actors.

She adds the industry is currently “getting rid of a lot of jobs and hopefully, things like unions will be able to come in and say, you can use my actor 20 times, but you’re going to pay him 20 times. And I think that’s fair.”

Rather than try and outright reject the tech, Foster says the hope is filmmakers never lose sight that it’s a tool that can be used for “small helpful things” and never let it take hold of the wheel:

“What we all would love is that filmmakers would be able to dominate AI, and never lose sight of that. If we are able to dominate AI consistently over time, we will be able to make things that reflect us, and we can make things better.”

Though hardly the critical and cultural juggernaut that was “Top Gun: Maverick,” Joseph Kosinski’s “F1” still proved a hit last year – landing some of the best reviews of a major studio film, a Best Picture Oscar nomination and Oscar win for sound, and a $634.1 million worldwide haul.

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